Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Raising of Lazarus, completed in 1896 and acquired by the French state directly from the Paris Salon of 1897, was the painting that made Tanner internationally famous and the first work by an American of African descent to enter the Louvre's collection. It depicts the climactic moment of John 11 - Christ commanding Lazarus from the tomb - in a setting of archaeological plausibility and emotional depth that still impresses over a century after its creation.
The Biblical Narrative
John 11 is the longest and most theologically dense miracle narrative in any of the Gospels. Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, has died and been entombed for four days when Jesus arrives in Bethany. Martha meets him first with the words: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21). Jesus responds with the great declaration: "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die" (John 11:25). At the tomb, moved by the grief of the mourners, "Jesus wept" (John 11:35) - the shortest verse in the Bible, and one of the most theologically significant. He then commands: "Lazarus, come out!" (John 11:43). The next verse - "The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face" (John 11:44) - is the moment Tanner chose to paint.
The Composition
Tanner depicts Christ with his arm extended toward the low entrance of the tomb, his posture commanding rather than supplicating - he does not ask the Father for a miracle in this image but speaks with authority. Lazarus is visible in the tomb entrance, still bound in grave cloths, emerging from the darkness into the light. The crowd around the tomb - figures in Palestinian dress, their faces showing amazement and reverence - creates a frame around the central action without crowding it. The light source, from above and behind Christ, is both natural (the Palestinian midday sun) and symbolic (the presence of the one who is, as he has just declared, the resurrection and the life).
Personal Identification
Tanner's identification with the Lazarus narrative was direct and personal. As a Black artist attempting to establish a career in the late 19th century, he had repeatedly encountered the experience of being written off - dismissed, excluded, left for dead by institutions and critics who refused to take him seriously. The Lazarus narrative, for Tanner, was the story of those who have been abandoned being called back into life by divine command rather than human permission. His friend and supporter Booker T. Washington understood this dimension of the painting, writing that Tanner had found in the raising of Lazarus a figure for the African-American experience of resurrection against all expectation.
Archaeological Research
Like The Annunciation two years later, The Raising of Lazarus reflects Tanner's serious engagement with Palestinian archaeology and his reading of contemporary biblical scholarship. The setting - the rock-cut tomb, the white linen cloths, the figures' dress - is based on his research in the region. The tomb type corresponds to known first-century Jewish burial architecture near Jerusalem. This concern for historical accuracy was itself a theological statement: the Incarnation and its events happened in real history, to real people, in a real landscape, and Tanner believed the dignity of that history demanded respectful visual reconstruction.
The Paris Salon and the Louvre
Tanner submitted the painting to the Paris Salon of 1897 where it received the Medal of Honor. The French state's purchase - which meant the painting entered the Luxembourg Museum (works of living artists), from which it subsequently moved to the Louvre - was an extraordinary validation. It placed Tanner among the world's most recognized painters at a moment when his own country's institutions were still largely closed to him. The painting is now held in the Musée d'Orsay.
Relationship to John 11:35
The painting's emotional center is the tension Tanner found in John 11:35 - "Jesus wept." The verse that describes Christ moved to tears by the grief of those he loves is the one that most powerfully establishes the full humanity of the one who is about to demonstrate his divine power over death. Tanner does not depict that earlier moment but its resolution: the weeping has passed, the command has been given, and the one who was dead walks out. The painting is a visual rendering of the Johannine theology that love and power, grief and glory, are not opposites but belong to the same person.
Legacy
The Raising of Lazarus established Tanner's international reputation and opened doors that his talent alone could not have opened in a racially segregated world. It remains one of the great American paintings of any period, and its integration of personal identification, archaeological research, and theological depth makes it a model of how biblical art can be simultaneously rigorous and intimate.